MHA's Center for Rural Health

A Few Words on Rural Hospitals, Leadership Diversity and Engaging Staff

A lot of ground was covered at the just-concluded American Hospital Association Annual Membership Meeting, from the future of critical access hospitals to the need for racial and generational diversity in health care leadership to the importance of engaging staff in the redesign of care delivery. Read more from Bill Santamour of Hospitals & Health Networks magazine here.

ideo News Short: North Sunflower's Joanie Perkins on rural telemedicine, meaningful use and Beacon Communities Read more: Video News Short: North Sunflower's Joanie Perkins on rural telemedicine, meaningful use and Beacon Communities

Joanie Perkins, director of network development for North Sunflower Medical Center in Ruleville, Miss., was an attendee at the National Rural Health Association annual meeting in Denver. She spoke with Modern Healthcare's Paul Barr on April 19 at the conference about efforts and programs at North Sunflower that one might not expect to find at a critical access hospital.   

Watch the video here.

The Future of Rural Hospitals: Q&A With Desiree Einsweiler, Incoming CEO of Palo Alto County Health System

Desiree Einsweiler has had an eventful year. In January, she was named interim administrator of Mitchell County Regional Health Center in Osage, Iowa, a partner facility of Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa in Mason City and a Trinity Health hospital. While overseeing the organization, she continued her previous role of as regional clinic director of MMC-North Iowa, the northern outpost of Des Moines-based Iowa Mercy Health Nework — a position she has held for four years.

On May 7, she'll step down from the interim role at Mitchell to take a permanent CEO position at Palo Alto County Health System in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The 25-bed critical-access hospital also partners with MMC-North Iowa in a management service agreement that provides the small rural hospital C-suite leadership and recruitment services.

Here Ms. Einsweiler discusses her career thus far and the challenges she expects to faces as one of the newest hospital CEOs in the Hawkeye state.

Bill would extend Medicare rural hospital provisions

Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) on May 7 introduced the Rural Hospital Access Act (S. 2620), American Hospital Association-supported legislation that would reauthorize the Medicare-Dependent Hospital program and extend the enhanced low-volume Medicare adjustment for prospective payment system hospitals for one year (through September 2013). Rural hospitals are more dependent on Medicare revenue and financially vulnerable to prospective payment because of the high percentage of Medicare beneficiaries who live in rural areas. To reduce this risk, the MDH program pays 211 eligible hospitals for inpatient services the sum of their prospective payment system rate plus three-quarters of the amount by which their cost per discharge exceeds the PPS rate.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act improved the low-volume adjustment for fiscal years 2011 and 2012 to better account for the relationship between cost and volume, help level the playing field for low-volume providers, and sustain and improve access to care in rural areas.

Big Things Come in Small Packages

With a focus on integrated delivery, evidence-based medicine and physician leadership, Adena Health System is proving that big things can come in small packages. The rural health system, for instance, eliminated readmission rates for a group of congestive heart failure patients. System executives discuss their approach to physician integration and improving care.

Watch the video here.

The Use of Hospitalists in Small Rural Hospitals

This policy brief describes the results of a survey of small rural hospitals that use hospitalists (physicians, physician assistants or nurse practitioners who assume responsibility for patient care during inpatient hospital stays).Researchers found that:

• Hospitalist use by Critical Access Hospitals and other rural hospitals with fewer than 100 beds more than doubled between 2005 and 2009. 
• Rural hospitals are using hospitalists for a variety of reasons, including covering call and reducing the workload for their medical staff, improving quality of care, allowing primary care patients to focus on outpatient care, and recruitment and retention of primary care physicians.
• The vast majority of surveyed rural hospitals report that hospitalist use has had positive impacts on quality of care and recruitment and retention of primary care physicians. Assessments of the financial impacts of hospitalist use are more mixed, with half of surveyed hospitals reporting negative impacts or both negative and positive impacts.

 

AHA participates in White House rural health meeting

The American Hospital Association on May 1 participated in a rural health stakeholders meeting convened by the White House Rural Council, established by the president last year to focus on ways to enhance federal programs serving rural communities. Rural health leaders shared their interests and challenges with key White House and administration officials, including Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

At the meeting, Sebelius announced $10.4 million in grants to expand 70 rural health centers, which she called “essential ingredients for rural towns.” The grants are part of $728 million awarded to expand health centers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

HHS distributes $10.4 million for rural health

HHS announced the awarding of $10.4 million in grants to 70 rural providers as part of the first round of funding for three-year direct healthcare projects in their communities. Read more from Modern Healthcare here.